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19 Jun 2012

review: artbox notebooks

Now that I've been using this for a month now to get my new and updated Thriving On Less project going. I tried this last year but it didn't work for me so here I am again, trying it out but with more gusto as I actually like how minimalist my room is at university - so I want to make it just the same at home!

Anyway, here is the notebook in question. You may recall it from the Artbox haul from about a month ago:

As you can see, I've decorated it with stickers of a panda doing a roly-poly and also of a
rabbit and a carrot.

Here is the first page. It gives you a brief overview of the what the inside looks like. It is of an A5 size for those wondering and it fitted perfectly into the Flex notebook slot in my ex-Affair (sob sob). You can vaguely see that there is writing on the other side of the page but it's not quite visible enough to see what I've written.

A close up actually shows that you can see what I wrote on the other side!

And this is the other side...

Another sample. I've found that if you fill the pages up, what is written on the other side is less obvious and noticeable...

The purple pen I used: a Uniball Signo Gelstick 0.7mm.

The blue pen I used is a Muji gel pen 0.5mm.

Here, you can see how the Muji gel pen writes on the paper, but also how much of the Uniball shows through too...

And another random sample using a Pentel Energel 0.7mm...

And the other side...

Overall, these notebooks are far cheaper than the Filofax Flex ones but it's reflected slightly in the paper quality. I'm not saying that there is no show through in the Filofax ones, because there is. Either way, it's not going to stop me from using them because a) they're far cuter looking on the outside but also because b) they're just so much cheaper than the Filofax branded ones! In the future, I will probably use these as a project notebook or if another Flex/personal Filofax is released, I may end up using them for that reason.

*Note: this post and the pictures taken were before my Affair had to be sent back.

Aw that notebook is so cute! I have the habit of buying notebooks and stationary I don't need haha :c But I think once I have money again I may have to invest in this little cutie :3 Lovely blog btw! <3